Proposal for Los Angeles
Proposal for Los Angeles
H O L I G E N T
Societal Reconstruction
PROPOSAL
for
Los Angeles
to
conduct a societal experiment
becoming the nursery for
universal quality of life,
world peace, and
systemic sustainability
saving civilization and the
natural world from
collapse and extinction
A. Nicholas Frank
Holigent Transition to Peace and Sustainability Org
We remember that twice in the 20th century, world wars dragged America into the conflicts, costing a great deal of treasure and blood. In this 21st century, the world once again is conflicted; global socioeconomic stress and tension are on the rise, and a nuclear armed enemy of Europe is at war with Ukraine. "The tension between Russia and the West is putting the world in colossal danger," Mikhail Gorbachev warned in a 2019 BBC interview.
Our existing practice of globally conflicted, extractive, techno-industrial, capitalist-consumerist, military-industrial complex — producing mountains of non-biodegradable and toxic waste on this nuclear armed planet — will come to a catastrophic end.
As you read the following stages of the proposal, please explore ways you could take an active part in moving societal reconstruction toward a future of peaceful systemic sustainability.
We have few options and limited time to reconstruct human minds, habits, and habitats to leave a truly sustainable Earth for our children. This is a proposal for a brave living experiment to achieve just that.
Stage 1. The Holigent House
Defining and housing the spirit of true sustainability
The first residents — let’s call them Holigent Solutioneers, the pioneers of Holigent Societal Rethink and Reconstruction — would get started in the Holigent House. They will examine life and society with a new mindset.
Holigent Solutioneers will learn about the need to examine life, because “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates) and understand that “a problem cannot be solved with the same mindset that created it” (Albert Einstein, paraphrased).
Urgent action is needed, because "if we don’t take action the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon” (Sir David Attenborough).
All babies must have a name. So in 2006 I gave the new sustainability concept the name Holigent — it is coined from two words, holistic and emergent. Holigent represents a concept that mimics nature’s building and sustainability code to protect and nurture Earth’s life-support capacity and to provide an organic model of systemic connectivity. This can be our guide to build social, economic, and environmental systemic sustainability to construct a peacefully habitable future for many happy generations to follow ours. This will be the core and working spirit of Holigent Societal Reconstruction — building truly sustainable compliant communities.
Now that the concept has a name, it needs a home. This could be accomplished in a number of ways. Holigent communities will be organized by NGOs that may be set up and funded by governments, corporations, billionaires, the United Nations, groups of individuals, or this Holigent.Org nonprofit organization. Holigent Solutioneers — those individuals who study, understand, and practice this new concept of true systemic sustainability — can start by building a virtual home for Holigent Communities in the minds of people with the help of social media. When funds arrive we will then purchase a suitable real property somewhere in Los Angeles. We will name the home of the new sustainability spirit, Holigent House.
Resident Solutioneers will post a plaque prominently on the facade of the Holigent House stating the guiding spirit for building the future of universal quality of life and resilient peaceful systemic sustainability for America and beyond. The plaque will read:
One for all and all for one,
doing the essential most,
consuming the least of resources,
with love and laughter,
without conflict and without waste.
Stage 2. The Holigent Campus
Develop a new breed of Solutioneers
At the rate donations arrive, the NGO assigned with the development will enlarge the Holigent House to become a learning campus. The Holigent Campus will invite activists and protestors from across America to become Holigent Solutioneers learning the art, science, and skills of Holigent Societal Reconstruction — building communities compliant with nature's building and sustainability code.
Holigent Solutioneers will learn about “nature’s building code” and develop experiments to mimic nature as closely as humanly possible and adopt and assess the results of living, learning, and working according to those rules.
Solutioneers will learn and practice construction, community maintenance, renewable energy generation, and vertical food production, among other skills. They will develop and practice ways of getting around with minimal use of mechanical transportation. Holigent Solutioneers will practice a hybrid socio-economy to replace unreformed capitalism and will practice resilient cellular democracy.
Accomplished Holigent Solutioneers will assist in building nature-compliant communities across America and beyond.
Stage 3. The Holigent Village
Living demonstration of true, resilient systemic sustainability
As funding continues to arrive, the campus will be enlarged to become the first experimental and demonstration Holigent Village. The village will demonstrate societal reconstruction that complies with nature’s building and sustainability code that maintains Earth’s life-support capacity. Accordingly, a Holigent Village will be a cellular, live/work, all-green, pedestrian community with a hybrid economy and social contracts:
Cellular: The Village is human scale, non-sprawling, self-directed and self-replicating (reinvesting their income in constructing new communities). Holigent communities are not vertical command structures but rather horizontal networking arrangements with other community cells.
Live/work: The human-scale community contains living and working spaces so that people live within walking distance of their work.
All green: Structures are built to comply with the latest green technology. The community generates most or all of its renewable solar and wind electric power, grows a significant portion of its fruits and vegetables in vertical farming, and does all its reclaiming and recycling.
Pedestrian: The village is an all-walkable, garden-like community with minimal use of mechanical transport.
Hybrid Economy: The Holigent Delta Plan is a three-way agreement between employers, employees, and the nonprofit management organization of the community. Employee-residents' number of hours worked at their job versus in community service is variable. This provides a flexible arrangement that works to secure continuity regardless of the condition of the general/global economy.
For example, in a worst-case scenario of an economic recession, employers may go into a dormant state rather than shut down, and their employees go on unpaid furlough instead of being laid off. Furloughed employees then work additional hours in community service, earning community credit that will pay part or all of their housing costs and provide life's essentials. Thus business investments are protected and employees’ essential quality of life is secured.
Social Contract: Part of the Holigent Delta Plan calls for each resident to commit a certain number of hours regularly doing community service for which they earn community credit that can be applied to reduce housing costs. Community service work can range from physical and social maintenance to participating in construction of new Holigent Villages. The social contract is a component of the proposed hybrid economy that works to elevate quality of life to become the essence of societal treasure and value exchange, diminishing the role of money.
Stage 4. The Holigent Global Village
A permanent world exhibition of systemic sustainability
Once we have a real-life demonstration of how people live, work, commute, produce, consume, educate, and govern themselves in a nature-compliant community such as a Holigent Village, then we can work on the next giant step.
That step will be to invite all nations to build their community within the International Holigent Village — a permanent world exhibition of nature-compliant communities to promote social, economic, and environmental systemic sustainability to secure universal quality of life and stability.
When the various participating nations build communities in their traditional architectural style, the result will be a colorful and vibrant permanent living world exhibition. Such a Holigent Global Village can serve as a model to guide societal reconstruction in building a future of peaceful systemic sustainability across America and beyond.
Note: Holigent community development is nonpolitical. It is reasonable to believe that nondemocratic systems will embrace it for creating much needed socioeconomic stability, without political interference.
Stage 5. Export Holigent Community Development
Plant seeds of hope, peace, and stability around the world.
Successful Holigent communities will assist in the construction of similar communities in troubled parts of the world. This will provide employment, hope, and purpose for people living in those regions, offering them an alternative to becoming refugees, migrants, or terrorists. Holigent communities will invite capable students from troubled regions to train them to become Holigent Solutioneers.
On their return to their native land, they will be organizers and builders of sustainable communities that will promote universal quality of life and help secure peace. They will also learn the skills of not challenging, but rather working with, local regimes to remove hurdles and receive protection for such stabilizing and life-improving developments.
America and Europe may consider this track as leading to the long-range solution to the migrant crisis. As suffering and conflicts multiply along with climate change and other disasters of a rudderless world, without a systemic solution the migrant crisis may become an unmanageable global tragedy.
Note: A number of locations can be found in Los Angeles for developing a Holigent Village. Holigent.Org is proposing the Expo Line corridor in proximity to USC.
About $5.0M would buy a small apartment building to be the Holigent House to get the process started.
Holigent ® is a registered trademark • The Alliance to Reconstruct America™ • Copyright © 2010, 2020 A. Nicholas Frank